A terrified woman stands in front of a judge. She is filing for divorce after years of suffering her husband’s abuse and she doesn’t know what is going to happen.
Her husband told her she would get nothing; not her clothes, not her pictures or any evidence of the memories she has collected since the marriage. She has no reason not to believe him. Her English skills are not very good, and for years, she lived under his control with no idea about life without him.
Her husband stands next to his lawyer. She could not afford one.
But she’s not alone. John Zeitz stands behind her and assures her everything will be all right. He’s not a lawyer, but he is there to help her every step of the way.
Zeitz said this woman’s case, one of the first he worked as a volunteer for Hope Alliance, motivated him to continue helping any way he could.
“I got the impression that my being there as a man, a male on her side of it, helped her a lot,” he said. “With the culture she came from, it was important to her that there was a male figure there.”
At Hope Alliance, Zeitz’s job is to accompany survivors of domestic and sexual abuse to court and help them navigate what can be an intimidating process. He said Hope Alliance has a lawyer on staff, but she is often too busy to hold the client’s hand and provide the emotional support she needs.
“This is a very traumatic time in their lives,” he said. “In many cases they are sitting in a courtroom waiting for their case to be called and the person who abused them or who the problem is with is right there in the room with them.”
John Duck, development director for the group, said it offers assistance in any number of ways, from a crisis hotline, to an emergency shelter to counseling and hospital and court accompaniment. He said the center can also refer survivors to job placement and continuing education services.
“We just really want to let people know that we have a lot of services here in Williamson County thanks to Hope Alliance,” he said.
The center serves all residents of Williamson County who have been affected by domestic or sexual violence and has satellite offices in Hutto, Cedar Park, Georgetown and Taylor in addition to the 24-hour crisis hotline.
The center was first established in 1984 as a rape crisis center and grew to offer a wide range of services to survivors and their families. In 2006, it changed its name from the Williamson County Crisis Center to Hope Alliance in order to encompass everything it does.
Duck said one of the most important functions Hope Alliance now serves is raising awareness in the community.
“There’s an aspect of victim blaming that still goes on to a certain extent,” he said, adding people still feel like they shouldn’t get involved in a “family issue.”
He said counteracting those innate assumptions is a big part of getting help for victims. The most important thing a person can do to help in a domestic violence situation, he said, is to provide resources to the victim or contact law enforcement.
“I would say fear and lack of resources are the biggest barriers,” he said. The abuser often cuts the victim off from transportation and support systems like friends and family, he added.
Zeitz said in the case of the women whose ex-husband would not even allow her access to her family photo albums, he had kept her under tight control.
“She was told for so long that she was worthless,” he said. “He had always had all the control and all the money and she didn’t have anything.”
In situations like that, Duck said, survivors often have no work or credit history and—especially in a down economy—can find it difficult to start a new life. He said helping them move on is a community effort.
“I really want people to know that it affects everyone in the community. Chances are, it’s affected someone you know,” he said. “ It also results in the need for a lot of tax dollars and services from our local counties and cities. … This is a community effort and a community issue.”
For more information on Hope Alliance, to volunteer or donate, visit www.hopealliancetx.org.
If you need help, contact the 24-hour crisis hotline at 1-800-460-SAFE (7233).